Rocky Rise: China's East Asia Policy (2009-present)

China's policy toward East Asia during the Obama administration (2009-present) reflects a curious mix of economic interdependence and strategic distrust. On one hand, eight of China's top ten trading partners are from the region. On the other, clear and varying levels of tension exist between China and some key regional states, which are either U.S. allies, or have developed an increasingly close relationship with Washington. In short, an increasingly broad and deep economic relationship is more than matched by frictions over territorial disputes in the South and East China Sea, and a generalized concern with how China has, and will use its growing capabilities and influence. Informed by interviews with Chinese academics and analysts that were conducted in Beijing in October and November 2013, this talk seeks to explore and explain the increasing complexity in China's regional policy. In the process, it will review various influential perspectives on Chinese foreign policy in the literature. 

Dr. Nicholas Khoo (PhD Columbia, MA SAIS, Johns Hopkins, BA University of California) is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Politics at the University of Otago in New Zealand. His research specialization focuses on Chinese foreign policy, the international relations of Asia and international relations theory. He is author of Collateral Damage: Sino-Soviet Rivalry and the Termination of the Sino-Vietnamese Alliance (New York: Columbia University Press, 2011), and co-author (with David Martin Jones and Michael Rainsborough) of Asian Security and the Rise of China: International Relations in an Age of Volatility (Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar, 2013).